We present a model of portfolio allocation by noise traders who form incorrect expectations about the variance of the return distribution of a particular asset. We show that for many types of misperceptions, as long as such noise traders do not affect prices, they earn higher expected returns than do rational investors with similar degrees of risk aversion. Moreover, many such noise traders survive and dominate the market in terms of wealth in the long run, in the sense that the probability that noise traders will eventually have a high share of the economy's wealth is arbitrarily close to one. Noise traders come to dominate the market despite the fact that they take excessive risk that skews the distribution of their long run wealth and despite their excessive consumption. We conclude that the theoretical case against the long run viability of noise traders is by no means as clear cut as is commonly supposed.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
2714.
Length: Date of creation: May 1992 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2714
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Magnus Blomstrom & Robert E. Lip & Ksenia Kulchycky, 1988.
"U.S. and Swedish Direct Investment and Exports,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Trade Policy Issues and Empirical Analysis, pages 257-302
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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